Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1914 [PAGE 151]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1912]

33. 34. 35 36. 37.

PEOCEEDINGS OF THE BOAKD OP TRUSTEES.

149

$18,000 13,000 33,000 60,000 50,000 00 00 00 00 00

Horticultural Building Horticultural Greenhouse Farm Mechanics Building Agricultural buildings of frame construction Floricultural group (under construction)

'.

$2,825,000 00 It will be noted that this list shows the original cost of these buildings. One of them, University Hall, is forty years old, and several of them date from before 1900. In the case of all but the recently erected buildings, very material deductions for depreciation should be made from these figures in order to obtain an estimate of the present value of the buildings on the campus. Probably a reduction of more than half a million should be made for depreciation. The sum of two and a quarter millions would probably represent fairly the present value of the building plant.

The foregoing statement was received for record.

M E T H O D OF P A Y I N G FOR MILK.

(10) A request from the Department of Dairy Husbandry, endorsed by the Dean of the College of Agriculture, that a more expeditious method of paying farmers for milk and cream purchased by the University for use in its experimental dairy work should be adopted.

Oh motion of Mr. Moore, this request from the Department of Dairy Husbandry was referred to the Chairman of the Finance Committee with a request that he report a plan for accomplishing the end in view. It was voted, also, on motion of Mrs. Bahrenburg, that the Department of Dairy Husbandry be asked to present, at the next meeting of the board, a statement of the receipts of the University from the sale of dairy manufactures, and its expenditures for raw materials used in dairy manufactures, for the month of November, 1912.

INTERPRETATION OF THE RULE IN REGARD TO THE APPOINTMENT OT RELATIVES.

President James stated that a question had been raised by Professor E. C. Schmidt, of the Department of Railway Engineering, as to the interpretation of the rule* of the Board of Trustees concerning the appointment of relatives of members of the board or relatives of members of the instructing or administrative staff of the. University, to positions under the Board of Trustees, and requested that Professor Schmidt be given a hearing upon this question. " ' . " ' , It was voted that Professor Schmidt be heard. Professor Schmidt, being introduced, stated first that he wished it to be clearly understood that, in his opinion, and in the opinion of his colleagues throughout the University, so far as he knew, the rule adopted by the board in this matter is a wise and salutary provision for the administration of the University, and is calculated to prevent certain serious abuses which are always likely to spring up in the management of a large institution like the University of Illinois. He said that he had understood, however, that the rule applied to first appointments and not to re-appointments, and that he thought the board should make a definite ruling on this point. He added that if the board should decide that the rule should apply to re-appointments as well as to appointments, then, in his opinion, it should apply in such cases only from the time when the board gave its definite ruling upon the subject, inasmuch as otherwise we should have an instance of retroactive legislation, which is usually undesirable. Professor Schmidt, then, at the request of President James, gave an interesting account of the development and equipment of the Locomotive Testing Laboratory which is now in process of erection upon the campus. After an extended discussion of the interpretation of the rule relating to the appointment of relatives of members of the board or members of the instructing or administrative staff and of the points raised by Professor Schmidt in this connection, further consideration of the subject was postponed until the next meeting of the board.

* Adopted September 30, 1898;; re-enacted December 28 1908, in the revised Statutes; reaffirmed September 20,1910 (Report 1912, pp. 11 and 12).